Whileaway

PhotographerTeän Roberts

PrizeHonorable Mention

City/CountryLondon, United Kingdom

Photo Date2016

Technical Info120mm & 35mm Kodak Portra

Entry Description

What would happen to the canon of the art nude on a planet where there were no men - and so no male gaze? Would the female gaze mutate, appropriating traditional aspects of voyeurism and possession? Or would these elements be forgotten entirely and the perception of women’s bodies exist in a totally new and alien value system?
These were the questions I asked myself as I used photography to travel through time and space, between our reality and the imaginary world of Whileaway - a planet conceived by Joanna Russ in her 1970s science fiction novel The Female Man - where there are no men, only women.
My photographic subjects and I have been seeking out extraterrestrial-looking places here on Earth, or altering existing Earth locations so they appear more like strange, surreal worlds and then photographing the brief moments of naked freedom we spend within these settings.